Overlapping

I am guilty of apologizing. I don’t mean the good kind, the kind that shows that I was wrong or inconsiderate to someone (although I try to be a good apologist where that is concerned), I mean the kneejerk additive to my language when I have an opinion or what I have to say might disappoint. I mean the kind that reflects some internal need to take up less space.

It is funny to think of brash and opinionated me as suffering from such a thing but I do. I’ve noticed it recently in emails, “I’m sorry, but you missed the deadline…”, “I’m sorry, but that doesn’t fit with the plan…”. I considered it a courtesy, a politeness in a world that often forgets its manners. 

But I’ve been reading articles lately that speak to the over-representation of apologetic language in women’s speech and how we are perceived because of it. 

Without fail, the response to this observation is that "women are just wired that way. Women are nurturing." If that is how women are wired then why would I try to stop "apologizing" since I'm wired to do so? Doesn't that mean I'm trying to  adopt maleness?                     

                                                                 

I don’t believe that to gain equality women should have to adopt the mannerisms that have been labeled as “manly” to be successful. Equally, I do not believe we should adopt the ones that women have been saddled with because…women. Unfortunately, sometimes these behaviors are snakes eating their tails. Do women apologize because we are told, in a million subtle and explicit ways, that women should be polite and likable or are we polite and likable because we are women? 

We are taught to be quiet, and “ladylike”, and considerate, we are told to be compliant and chaste. The idea of our maternal instincts is pushed to the forefront to guide/shame us into behaviors that we may not possess, or if we do, we may not want to exhibit. It can ingrain itself. A few months ago I found myself in a middle seat sandwiched between two men on a packed flight. Neither yielded the armrests and I found myself reluctant to push the issue. And yes, you can insert here my own agency and personal choice not to voice a complaint, but I’m not alone.

I suspect our generalized behavior (of course there are women who do not fall in this category) comes from social indoctrination. Part of the reason I suspect conditioning over genetics is that I find I have adopted parallel behavioral tics as a result of my blackness. Society has strict definitions. For women, the "appropriate" behaviors are those that people are convinced are the very foundation of femaleness, the opposite holds true for blackness. With blackness, the acceptability protocol is a stricter and narrower definition of whiteness. 

Wade in here with me for a moment.

I know how blackness is received in this country (if you need a primer check here, here, here, and here) and as a result I am always aware of my language and demeanor. I am aware of the space I inhabit and how others might feel about the space I inhabit. I have adopted a specific way of being in the world based on all of those things. Would I have been this me if those rules weren’t thrust at me from every direction – I’ll never know.

The messages directed at blackness are not the same as the ones telegraphed to women but they share similar threads. Threads of "acceptability". To be acceptably black my use of language, my clothing, my posture, my ability to swallow insults - subtle and not- about people who look like me, are essential. I can (and do) move away from aspects of what people's idea of "appropriate blackness" is, but there are consequences for doing so. 

There are labels.  For women..."Slut," "Easy," "Stuck up," "Bitch."

For black people..."Uppity," "Angry," "Ignorant," "Ghetto," 'Nigger."

There are actions. For women, you are catcalled, paid less, raped.

For black people, you are less likely to be hired, arrested, murdered. 

The restrictive space that society "allows" my blackness, my womaness, can be stifling. The rules are limiting of the true expression of who I am, who I strive to be, the parts of myself that can safely flourish. Who I am permitted to be based on my interwoven demographics, both black and woman, sometimes feels like a tiny space. Like every step I take, every expression, is a revolutionary action. And, I suppose, it is.